Over
his long lifetime, born in 1914, Landrum Bolling
has had exceptional international experiences in conflict resolution
and in facilitating dialogue between members of different religions,
cultures and ethnicities. (see http://www.vimeo.com/channels/landrumreflects)

A journalist
at the beginning of his career, Landrum Bolling was a foreign
correspondent with assignments in Rome, Vienna and Berlin. He
served as a war correspondent with Tito's Partisans during World War
II, covering the liberation of Sarajevo from Hitler's occupation
army. During his long writing career Dr. Bolling has written or
co-authored several books, including Search for Peace in the
Middle East, This is Germany, Private Foreign Aid, Reporters Under Fire,
andConflict Resolution:
Track Two Diplomacy.

Search
for Peace in the Middle East,published in 1970, was translated into many
languages and began Dr. Bolling's lifetime quest to help bring about
peace in the Holy Land between Jews and Palestinians. His
profound and original thinking at the time helped inspire what was to
become known more than a decade later as the "Two-State
Solution". In pursuit of this goal Dr. Bolling personally
knew and worked with many of the political and social leaders in the
Middle East, met in the White House with President Nixon, and served as
an unofficial interlocutor between President Carter and Yasser Arfat.
(see http://www.vimeo.com/channels/landrumremembers)

Trained as a political
scientist at the University of Tennessee and the University of Chicago,
Dr. Bolling served on the faculties of Beloit College, Brown University
and Earlham College, where he was president for 15 years. He was also a
research professor at The Institute for the Study of Diplomacy of
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

Dr. Bolling also served as President of the Lilly Endowment, one of the
largest grant-making foundations in the world, and as Chief Executive
Officer of the Council on Foundations.

Over the past 35 years, Dr. Bolling was drawn repeatedly in the study
of the Arab-Israeli conflict and became personally acquainted with a
number of the leading political personages on both sides. Beginning in
the administration of President Jimmy Carter, when direct official
communication between Washington and the PLO was forbidden, he was one
of the informal, "nonofficial" links entrusted with delivering messages
between the White House and the State Department and top Palestinian
leaders.

Dr. Bolling
was for many years a senior advisor and Board Member of Conflict
Management Group in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a nonprofit agency that
originated from the Harvard University Program in Negotiation, and is
now a division of Mercy Corps. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Center
for International Policy in Washington.

Dr. Bolling
has served as a senior advisor to Mercy Corps for much of the
organization's history. He was for more than three years Mercy Corps'
senior representative in the Balkans, stationed in Sarajevo. In working
with local and national government officials, religious leaders and
non-governmental organizations in Bosnia he developed initiatives for
inter-ethnic and inter-religious cooperation and recognition. In
2008 the new Mercy Corps headquarters on top of the Mount of Olives in
Jerusalem was dedicated to Dr. Bolling with him in attendance.

Dr. Bolling
now works out of the Mercy Corp office in Washington, DC as a senior
advisor on matters of policy and program development. He also serves as
President of Pax World Service, a Mercy Corps affiliate that promotes
citizen diplomacy.

Dr. Bolling
has received more than 30 honorary doctorates from U.S. and foreign
universities. In June of 2000 he was honored, along with Senator George
Mitchell, with a "Peacemaker/Peace Builder" award by the National Peace
Foundation. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville awarded Bolling, a
1933 graduate, with its prestigious Founders Medal in 1998. Similar
recognition has been accorded him by Earlham College, where the LandrumBolling Center for the Social Sciences and
Interdisciplinary Studies was dedicated in 2002. In 2005
Dr. Bolling received the CASE award for his life service to
education. In 2010 Dr. Bolling received the lifetime
achievement aware from the National Council on U.S. Arab Relations
(NCUSAR).

FROM EARLHAM
COLLEGE

The
Landrum Bolling Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and Social
Sciences at Earlham College

Landrum
Bollingserved as
president of Earlham College from 1958 to 1973, then as president and
chairman of the board of Lilly Endowment Inc., and later as chairman,
then chief executive officer, of the national Council on Foundations.
In 1982 he became research professor of the Institute for the Study of
Diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Because
of his non-official but close involvement in Middle East affairs,
Landrum became well acquainted with many of the leaders among all sides
in the conflict. From time to time he served as an informal "messenger"
between political leaders and governments that had difficulty in
communicating directly. In this connection, he functioned as a link for
The White House and State Department with Yasir Arafat and the
Palestine Liberation Organization in more than one administration, but
particularly during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. He has maintained a
relationship with these and other world leaders to this day. Landrum
has served as chairman or board member of the Associated Colleges of
Indiana, the Indiana Conference on Higher Education, and the national
Association of Protestant Colleges and Universities, and the
Association of American Colleges. He has been awarded honorary degrees
by more than 25 U.S. and foreign colleges and universities, including
Oberlin College, Haverford College, Indiana University and Waseda
University in Tokyo.

Landrum is
currently director at large of Mercy Corps International, a nonprofit
voluntary organization that exists to alleviate suffering, poverty and
oppression by helping build secure, productive and just communities.
For two years after the cessation of hostilities in Bosnia, he assisted
Mercy Corps in projects of economic development and reconstruction in
the devastated city of Sarajevo and throughout Bosnia. Landrum is also
senior advisor and board member of the Conflict Management Group in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and senior fellow at the Center for
International Policy in Washington, D.C.

Landrum has worked a lifetime to unite disparate peoples into peaceful
relationships founded on mutual respect and equal justice. In that same
spirit of unity, the Landrum Bolling Center for Interdisciplinary
Studies and Social Sciences at Earlham will bring together separate but
interrelated and mutually informing disciplines into a common home
where they may better thrive. We can think of no better tribute to
Landrum Bolling, whose life is a continuing testimony to mutual
understanding.

"The Landrum Bolling Center for
Interdisciplinary Studies and Social Sciences at Earlham College is
a fitting tribute to Dr. Bolling’s extensive work in peace and
education. I will always be grateful for the link he provided between
The White House and the State Department during our negotiations with
Yasir Arafat and the PLO. I am pleased to still be able to call on the
great talents of my friend, Landrum Bolling."
President Jimmy Carter